s. DELIVER?^ 



DEC 27 1897 



"A 



Qy of ConS 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

ChapS^ Copyright No. 

Shelf...C.S_S* 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BOOKS 



BY 

REV. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D. D. 

Price 

The Great Secret $0.30 

Young People's Prayer Meetings .75 

Looking Out on Life .75 

A book for young women. 
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A book for young men. 

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Boston. Chicago. 



THE GREAT SECRET 



HEALTH, BEAUTY, HAPPINESS, FRIEND- 
MAKING, COMMON SENSE, 
SUCCESS 



BY 

FRANCIS EDWARD CLARK, D. D. 

M 

President of the United Society of Christian 
Endeavor and of the WorWs Chris- 
tian Endeavor Union 



"The secret of the Lord is with them 
that fear him." 



UNITED SOCIETY 

OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR 

BOSTON CHICAGO 




TWO COPIES RECEIVED 



**& 



Copyright, 18Q7, 

BY THE 

United Society of Christian Endeavor. 



Colmttal $ra»: 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. 
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



DEDICATED TO 

M. WL. «♦ art ffi. #♦ «♦ 

AND TO THE GREAT MULTITUDE 

OF YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN 

WHOM THEY REPRESENT, 

WITH THE EARNEST HOPE AND PRAYER 

THAT EACH ONE MAY LEARN 

FOR HIMSELF 

THE GREAT SECRET. 



CONTENTS. 



Part I. PAGE 

The Secret of Health . . .15 

Part II. 
The Secret of Beauty . . .31 

Part III. 
The Secret of Happiness . . 45 

Part IV. 
The Secret of Friend-making . 59 

Part V. 
The Secret of Common Sense . 71 

Part VI. 

The Secret of Success . . .83 

Part VII. 
What is it to Practise the Pres- 
ence of God? . . . .95 



PREFACE. 



The object of this little book is to 
present some of the less obvious and 
less understood results of communion 
with God. 

The fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, kindness — are 
often, and rightly, dwelt upon as the 
supremely blessed outcome of the Spirit- 
filled life ; and yet there are other, and 
no less real, benefits which commun- 
ion with God confers, which should not 
be left out of the account. 

To be sure, if we seek God's presence 
for the sake of the health, friends, and 



PREFACE. 

prosperity which it will bring, the bless- 
ings will elude our selfish grasp, and 
the precious secret will never be ours. 
No sort of simony is tolerated by God. 
But if we truly seek God for himself, 
with himself he freely gives us all 
things. If we seek first his kingdom 
and his righteousness, all these things 
shall be added. 

I have made frequent use of this 
phrase, "practising the presence of 
God," so loved of Jeremy Taylor, 
Brother Lawrence, and other devout 
men, because the use of this somewhat 
unusual synonym for communion with 
God, and similar phrases, may lead some 
of my readers to inquire more deeply 
into its meaning, and to find out for 
themselves its blessed significance. 

These chapters have been written 



PREFACE. 

during a long and otherwise tedious 
and unpleasant voyage of twenty-three 
days in tropical seas, on a Hindoo coo- 
lie ship, from India to South Africa, 
during which (for the voyage has been 
in some sense my Arabia) I trust I have 
learned something (more, at least, little 
as it is, than I ever knew before) of the 
blessed life I have tried to open to 
others. 

Young people, especially, long with an 
intense longing to know the secret of 
true success in life ; I have put into 
their hands the key. May God, who 
alone can do it, help them to unlock 
the wondrous secret. 

Steamship " Congella" 

Indian Ocean, March, 1897. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART I. 



THE 

SECRET 

OF 

HEALTH 



THE GREAT SECRET. 



PART I. 

THE SECRET OF HEALTH. 

"Art thou in health, my brother ?" — 2 Sam. 
20 : 9. 

T TEALTH lies very near the foun- 
* -*- dation of happiness and prosper- 
ity and beauty. The chronic invalid is 
seldom happy, and rarely successful or 
comely. Ill health is a fearful handicap 
in life's race. It weights its victim 
with a fresh load at the beginning of 
every new day, and, though a few rare 
souls smile through the tears wrung 
15 



1 6 THE GREAT SECRET 

from them by the tortures of disease, 
and a few more have risen superior to 
physical suffering, and won a splendid 
success in life, yet these are but the 
exceptions, for life's coast-line is strewn 
with the wrecks of hope and happiness 
caused by physical disease. 

No wonder, then, that a very consid- 
erable portion of man's invention and 
energy seems to be devoted to the two- 
fold problem, how to get well, how to 
keep well. 

Patent Remedies* 

The advertising columns of our news- 
papers, our bill-boards, and fence-rails, 
give one answer to this question as they 
tell of nostrums, more or less valuable, 
for the different ills to which flesh is 
heir. 



THE SECRET OF HEALTH. \J 

The sacred shrines, like those of 
Lourdes or St. Ann's or the Virgin of 
Guadalupe, give another answer and 
another illustration of the eagerness of 
men to leave their crutches and their 
diseases behind them, and to stand 
upon their feet, whole and sound. The 
votary of Christian science offers an- 
other panacea, and one which has this 
great merit, that it strenuously exalts 
mind over matter, the spiritual over the 
material ; but it is mixed, if I may ex- 
press a humble opinion, with not a few 
erroneous or partial views of truth. 

The believer in faith-cure points out 
still another, but somewhat parallel, high 
road to health, which, though it seems 
sometimes, when trodden by the unbal- 
anced and fanatical, to be a narrow and 
crooked thoroughfare, leading to the 



1 8 THE GREAT SECRET. 

lunatic asylum rather than to robust 
and manly vigor, is yet worthy of sym- 
pathetic study, in that its avowed end 
is to lead those who follow it directly 
to God. 

I have no new nostrums to offer, no 
new " cure " to advocate ; but I devoutly 
believe that too little has always been 
thought of the hygienic effect of com- 
munion with God. I devoutly believe 
that a multitude of physical diseases 
might be arrested and a multitude more 
cured by the constant, habitual " prac- 
tice of the presence of God/' 

No Magic* 

These cures would not be wrought 
by magic or by miracle, but strictly in 
accordance with the immutable laws of 
nature, which are the laws of God. 



THE SECRET OE HEALTH. 1 9 

This theory would not do away with 
the use of means or skilfully adminis- 
tered medicine ; it would not set a 
broken limb without splints, or refuse 
to believe that vaccination prevents 
small-pox ; but it would go directly as 
well as indirectly to Him who is the 
giver of health and every good and per- 
fect gift. 

Take, for instance, the whole range 
of nervous diseases, whose name is 
legion. These diseases cause more suf- 
fering, and in these days, probably, are 
more widely prevalent than all others 
put together. What can be done for 
them ? The wisest practitioners have 
been in despair. No known medicine 
can reach their root. The prescribed 
tonics do but brace and stimulate, and 
often leave the man in his last es- 



20 THE GREAT SECRET 

tate seven times worse than in his 
first. 

Travel, recreation, change of place, do 
but keep the pain. Exercise and elec- 
tricity, massage and movement cures, 
at the most only palliate ; they do not 
remove the disease. 

What, then, is to be done? Shall 
we give up in despair, and let nervous 
prostration claim a thousand times more 
victims than plague and cholera ? Shall 
we give the New World over to be in- 
creasingly a prey to " Americanitis," as 
nervous collapse has been called ? 

The Rest Cure. 

No ; the wisest physicians who have 
made a lifelong study of the nerves 
and their ailments have united in the 
conclusion that there is one effective 



THE SECRET OF HEALTH. 21 

remedy, — the rest cure. If for weeks 
or months the patient can be induced 
to rest his body and his mind abso- 
lutely, as a little child rests in its 
mother's arms, he will in all probability 
recover. In God alone — I say it with 
all reverence — we find the real rest cure, 
for he alone is the source of rest. He 
alone gives rest to the nervously weary 
and heavy-laden. He is the rest as 
well as the refuge of his saints. In him 
alone the soul can rest, and thus he be- 
comes "the health of our countenance.' ' 
To talk of the "rest cure" to the 
wealthy may be well enough, but to 
many a man it is but a mockery. How 
can he take the "rest cure" who has 
nothing in the bank, with wife and chil- 
dren dependent on him for daily bread? 
But upon God he can lay his heavy 



22 THE GREAT SECRET 

burdens, and in his everlasting arms 
he can rest, even though he must every 
morning arise and go to his grinding 
toil. 

Even the millionaire can buy only 
physical rest, and that is the smallest 
part of the "cure." With a bank full 
of gold he cannot purchase freedom 
from care and the torments of anxiety 
and worry, which more than all other 
causes produce nervous prostration. 
Yea, the bank full of gold and the 
care it entails are the most prolific 
sources of the disease he is fighting. 
How can he find rest ? Not in bed, 
not in a holiday, not in Europe. Like 
the poorest clerk in his own bank, he 
can find real rest and permanent relief 
only in God, in casting the bank and 
all its heavy cares on him. 



THE SECRET OF HEALTH. 2$ 

What is true of the protean monster 
called nervous prostration is true of 
many another disease. The sick child 
puts its little burning hand into its 
mother's cool and steady palm, and its 
fever abates, and it drops off into a 
healing sleep. So the sick child of 
larger growth, when he has come into 
the same loving relation with his Father 
in heaven, when he practises constantly 
his presence, consciously, even if figura- 
tively, places his hand in his Father's 
(he can express the spiritual act in no 
better way), and the fever abates. The 
consciousness of strength and confi- 
dence and repose come over him, and 
the telltale temperature thermometer 
would often mark the difference, and 
show that, attacked by the same fever, 
the trustful child of God had a far 



24 THE GREAT SECRET 

better chance of life than the anxious, 
choleric, impatient fellow patient, who 
trusted only in quinine and calomel. 

Thus by removing anxiety fever is 
allayed and inflammation reduced, and 
the diseased lung or brain or the broken 
limb more quickly becomes sound and 
well. 

It is a fact too well known to need 
further statement that infectious dis- 
eases most often attack those who fear 
them most. Two men may walk through 
the same hospital where cholera rages, 
and the man who is serene and con- 
fident in the presence of God and in 
the consciousness that he himself is in 
the way of duty is far more secure than 
the nervous, timid soul who fears that 
every moment he may contract dis- 
ease. 



THE SECRET OF HEALTH. 2$ 

The Secret Told* 

But I have said enough, perhaps, to 
make my meaning clear. I am not 
speaking in a figurative, symbolic way 
about God as the source of health. I 
would be taken literally. The blood 
thermometer and the stethoscope, the 
microscope searching for microbes, and 
the doctor's practised ear listening to 
the pulsations of the heart would recog- 
nize the difference, other things being 
equal, between a man who practised the 
presence of God and a man who did not. 

Annuity computations and life-insur- 
ance tables, could they but take this 
factor into account, would be affected 
thereby, and "His saving health" would 
be "known among all nations." 

Why should this be thought a thing 
incredible ? He came into the world 



26 THE GREAT SECRET. 

that we might have life, and that we 
might have it more abundantly ; and 
physical life and health are dependent 
on spiritual life and health. 

How can we practise in this school 
of medicine ? By practising the pres- 
ence of God. And this involves the 
renunciation of known sin, though it 
be like the cutting off of the right hand 
or the plucking out of the right eye. 
It involves the complete surrender of 
one's self to God, the giving up of one's 
will to him, the " willingness to be made 
willing," if you can get no further at 
first. It involves the taking of time 
every day to commune with God, be- 
ing alone with him ; opening the whole 
being to him; taking suggestions and 
directions directly from him, and living 
up to every known duty. 



THE SECRET OF HEALTH. 2J 

Is all this a difficult task, a hard 
school of medicine in which to practise ? 
my brother, you will not find it so. 
You will soon find it your greatest joy 
to practise the presence of God who 
healeth all thy diseases. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART II. 



THE 

SECRET 

OP 

BEAUTY 



PART II. 

THE SECRET OF BEAUTY. 

" Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon 
us." — Ps. 90 : 17. 

HO seek to have a beautiful face is 
-^ no unworthy aspiration; the ob- 
ject of attaining beauty and the means 
of attaining it alone may make the quest 
ignoble. 

It is a platitude that will bear repe- 
tition that comeliness is attractive, and 
to be attractive is to win people to your 
way of thinking and living. 

Every one should set before himself 
a high ideal, and then seek to become 
31 



32 THE GREAT SECRET. 

a powerful magnet to attract all others 
to that ideal. 

The young woman who neglects her 
natural charms and, from a false ascetic 
notion, becomes unkempt, repulsive, or 
unattractive in personal appearance, neg- 
lects a gift that is in her, and needs to 
ponder Paul's advice to Timothy. 

The young man who becomes slovenly 
and slipshod, and neglectful of personal 
appearance, shows, so far forth, a cer- 
tain demoralization of character. There 
is almost more hope of a "dude" than 
of him. A limp Bible in the hands is 
an excellent thing ; but it is robbed of 
something of its power when it goes 
with a limp collar, a greasy waistcoat, 
or a beard of four days' growth. 

But I need not urge these views. 
There is no woman, and there are few 



THE SECRET OF BEAUTY. 33 

men, who in their secret hearts do not 
desire comeliness of feature and form. 
The question is how to attain this 
grace. 

A Beauty within the Reach of AIL 

It is very evident that some elements 
of beauty, usually considered essential, 
are not within the reach of all. Not 
every one can have the sparkling eye, 
the rosy cheek, the pearly teeth, the 
luxuriant hair of just the right shade, 
over which novelists go into raptures. 
If these properties make up the full 
inventory of beauty, then it can be only 
the coveted prize of the few, and not 
the common possession of the many. 
But it is just because these qualities 
do not make real beauty, just because 
beauty is a thing to be attained, some- 



34 THE GREAT SECRET. 

thing made and not born, that this 
chapter is written. 

It is a very old and trite saying, but 
as true as are most trite sayings, that 
beauty is a matter of the soul and of 
character. The fact that needs to be 
made very plain is that the body comes 
in time to express the character, accu- 
rately, exactly, inevitably. The beauti- 
ful soul must in time come to look out 
through beautiful eyes. The beautiful 
character is sure to express itself, sooner 
or later, in a beautiful smile, in a charm- 
ing expression, that makes the whole 
face lovely. 

" Handsome is that handsome does," 
is a homely proverb that means a great 
deal more than is commonly supposed. 
Not only is it true that a beautiful act 
is itself beautiful; but, often repeated, 



THE SECRE T OF BE A UTY. 3 5 

it makes beautiful the character, and 
eventually the face, of the doer. 

Ugly Is That Ugly Does* 

The converse of this is sadly true. 
Ugly is that ugly does. Every stroll 
upon a crowded city street confirms it. 
Look into the faces of those you meet, 
and upon how many you will see ava- 
rice, duplicity, frivolity, lust, debauchery, 
imprinted as with a hot branding-iron ! 
The soul has stamped its impress there, 
and the unconscious passer-by shows 
the world, as if he held up a printed 
page, that the soul within is marring 
and defacing its outward temple. 

That we may see very plainly how 
the face expresses the soul, and becomes 
beautiful or ugly as the soul is beautiful 
or ugly, consider the faces of two girls 



36 THE GREAT SECRET 

whom it is not hard to picture. Very 
likely we have all actually known such 
girls. 

One begins life with what people call 
a beautiful face. The features are reg- 
ular, the eyes bright, the complexion 
fair and flawless, the hair abundant and 
glossy. Passing strangers stop to ad- 
mire her, and say, "What a pretty little 
girl!" 

The other girl, her playmate, attracts 
no attention ; her features are not strik- 
ingly attractive ; she is just an every- 
day little girl, of whom no one takes 
much notice. Her playmate wins all 
the praise, and if any one notices her, 
it is only to say, " She is a plain little 
thing.' ' But the days go by, and every 
day leaves its mark upon each little 
face. A suspicion of pride and vanity 



THE SECRET OF BEAUTY. 3/ 

begins to gleam out of the pretty girl's 
eyes ; an unlovely pout is easily called 
to the corners of her lips; an expres- 
sion of sarcastic selfishness takes up 
its abode in her dimpled cheeks. Men 
instinctively avoid her, warned, uncon- 
sciously, by some good genius within. 
As the years go by, these little lines, 
at first so faint, are graven more deeply ; 
as age approaches, they are frightfully 
accentuated, and she becomes, in the 
eyes of every one, an unlovely old 
woman. 

The Plain Girl Grows Comely* 

The other one, the plain girl, some- 
how develops an attractive winsome- 
ness. Eyes, mouth, and cheeks are the 
same as at first, yet not the same. A 
good fairy seems to have touched every 



38 THE GREAT SECRET 

feature while she slept, and to have 
irradiated it. It is, indeed, the good 
fairy of a sweet disposition and an 
unselfish soul. Gentleness looks out 
of her eyes, happiness and good nature 
curves her lips, and peace seems to 
brood over her whole sunny face. It 
is a face that wise young men wish to win 
for their own, for hers is a beauty that 
satisfies the soul as well as the eyes. 

But this is just the beauty that can 
be cultivated, as the gardener cultivates 
and develops a rare flower. It is not 
dependent upon parentage and lineage. 
It is not a thing of complexion or spar- 
kle or regularity ; still less is it a matter 
of rouge and crimps and powder. It 
is a beauty that will wash and wear. 
Better than all, it is within the reach 
of all. 



THE SECRET OF BEAUTY. 39 

Some of us, when we look in the 
glass, are painfully impressed with the 
fact that the artist would never take 
us for his model. We are, moreover, 
shy and bashful and ill at ease, and 
add awkwardness of manner to awk- 
wardness of feature; but there is a 
great Artist, the Creator of every liv- 
ing thing, who will transform and trans- 
figure us if we will let him. 

The Secret Told* 

The Christlike spirit always looks out 
through beautiful eyes. Christ's smile 
always rests on beautiful lips. The 
secret of beauty, would you know it? 
It is the same as the secret of health. 
Practise the presence of God. Dwell 
much upon his character and his love- 
liness as revealed in Jesus Christ. Go 



40 THE GREAT SECRET 

by yourself every day to talk with God. 
Search your heart to see that pride and 
envy and anger and lust and covet- 
ousness, all of which leave their ugly 
creases upon the face, have no abiding- 
place in your soul. Seek to be like 
him in every half-unconscious act, in 
every passing thought, and little by 
little his beautiful image will be im- 
pressed upon your face as well as on 
your heart. As you come to see him 
more and more as he is, you come to 
be like him. 

Again I must remind my readers 
that I am not writing figuratively and 
rhetorically, but what I believe are prac- 
tical words of truth and soberness. To 
practise the presence of God is to grow 
beautiful in face. To commune with 
him is to become attractive and lovable 
and winsome. 



THE SECRET OF BEAUTY. 4 1 

Not for this beauty in itself, of course, 
should we practise his presence. To do 
this from the wrong motive would de- 
feat our very purpose, and ugly selfish- 
ness, not the beauty of Christlikeness, 
would be reflected in our faces. But 
he who in love and lowliness looks into 
God's face at length is seen to have in 
his own face the love and gentleness 
and grace of God, and the peace which 
passeth understanding. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART III. 



THE 

SECRET 

OF 

HAPPINESS 



PART III. 

THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS, 

" In thy presence is fulness of joy." — Ps. 
16 : ii. 

TJAPPINESS, as usually sought, is 
-■- -* the most elusive of emotions. 
When we think we have it most se- 
curely caged, we find that it has escaped 
us and flown to another bush. Its se- 
cret, more eagerly desired than any 
other, plays constant hide-and-seek with 
the ardent wooer, and remains a secret. 
To many persons it seems that there 
are two kinds of happiness, the happi- 
ness of the without, and the happiness 

of the within, and, the happiness of the 
45 



46 THE GREAT SECRET 

without being to them the most real and 
obvious, they seek for it with feverish 
eagerness. They pursue it to the moun- 
tains and the seashore. They cross the 
ocean to find it in Europe. They seek 
it in the theatre and the dance-hall. If 
of a domestic turn of mind, they look for 
it by the hearth-rug and the fireside, and 
seek to establish a home and build up 
an estate. If of literary inclination, 
they seek this will-o'-the-wisp in books 
and communion with the spirits of the 
past. The mere man of business hopes 
to find it in his bank and counting-room, 
and cannot imagine it apart from ledgers 
and day-books. 

But all these methods of seeking hap- 
piness, from the coarse, animal pleas- 
ure of the libertine, to the refined, 
aesthetic pleasure of the artist, have this 



THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS 47 

fatal defect in common, that they look 
for it without the man, in things, things 
that may or may not be right in them- 
selves, but that have as little happiness 
inhering in them as the refuse heap of a 
city "dump." 

As I write these words, I am pursued 
by the fear that many of my readers 
will impatiently skip this letter, saying : 
" O, yes, we have heard this before. It 
is the old story that the minister and 
the moralist are always telling.' ' But, 
if it is an old story, it is a true story, 
and none the worse — nay, all the bet- 
ter — for its age, for this shows the con- 
sensus of many minds in many ages. 

Within, Not Without* 

But whether old or new, fresh or 
stale, received as a glad revelation or 



48 THE GREAT SECRET 

scorned as an ancient platitude, it re- 
mains certain that the secret spring of 
happiness must be sought within. He 
will never, never know the secret who 
seeks it elsewhere. 

This truth can be easily illustrated. 
A man travels far to see some wonder 
of nature of which he has long dreamed, 
and to behold which, he imagines, will 
fill him with rapturous joy. Perhaps it 
is the falls of Niagara. But, when he 
reaches Niagara, a telegram is given 
him, saying that some business venture 
has gone wrong and half his property is 
swept away. Would the man of the 
world enjoy the magnificent glories of 
the cataract with that telegram in his 
hand ? 

Niagara would be just as majestic, as 
awe-inspiring, as ever, but it would have 



THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS. 49 

few beauties for that man, for he could 
not look at it with an unruffled heart. 
There would be a cloud, denser than 
the mist that rises from the falls, be- 
tween him and the glories of the mighty- 
cataract , 

Here is another man, who has set his 
heart upon being a millionaire. During 
weary years of money-grubbing and 
muck-raking, he has said to himself, 
"When I am worth a million, I shall 
be supremely happy/ ' The day his 
ambition is realized, however, he learns 
from the doctor that he has an incur- 
able disease, which within a twelvemonth 
will surely carry him to the grave. Do 
you believe he is a happy man ? He has 
all that he set his heart upon. The 
million dollars is his, indubitably, well 
invested and secure ; but, with the ter- 



50 THE GREAT SECRET 

rible news of the inevitable end so near, 
he cannot smile at his money-bags, and 
the healthy boy whistling along the vil- 
lage street, without a nickel in his pocket, 
is happier far than the millionaire. 

Why is this ? Because happiness lies 
not in beautiful Niagara, but in the soul 
behind the eye that looks at Niagara. 
Because happiness is found not in a 
million dollars' worth of safe securities, 
or in all that the million dollars will buy, 
but in the soul of the man that owns 
the securities. 

What Makes Niagara Beautiful* 

On the other hand, it requires no 
stretch of the imagination to conceive of 
a devout and heavenly-minded Christian, 
serene and happy, under exactly similar 
circumstances. 



THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS. 5 I 

His property gone ? " The Lord 
gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; 
blessed be the name of the Lord," he 
says. His days numbered ? He is 
not dismayed, for he can shout trium- 
phantly : " For we know that if our 
earthly house of this tabernacle be 
dissolved, we have a building from God, 
a house not made with hands, eternal, 
in the heavens. . . . Therefore we are 
always confident." 

" But," says the objector, " men do 
not always lose their property when 
they gaze at Niagara, or always lose 
their health when they make a million 
dollars." Undoubtedly; but the truth 
I would make plain, a truth we are all 
slow to learn, but without which we can 
never know the secret, is that happiness 
lies in the man himself, and not in the 



52 THE GREAT SECRET 

thing outside the man. If he is happy 
when he looks, Niagara gives him pleas- 
ure, but not otherwise. If he is happy 
when he contemplates his stocks and 
bonds, they contribute to his joy, but 
his happiness may be quite apart from 
them. 

There is, then, but one place to look 
for happiness, and that is within the 
soul itself. The spring must be found 
there, or else it cannot well up to flood 
the life. 

An Amazon of Happiness* 

But, thank God, every son of man 
can have it implanted within him. 
There is none so poor, so obscure, so 
dull, so cross-grained by nature, so un- 
fortunate, so sickly, so friendless, so 
weighted by circumstances, that he 



THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS. 53 

cannot have, flowing through his life, 
the streams which " make glad." As 
there are vast underground rivers in 
many parts of the world, broader and 
deeper and of more majestic sweep than 
any Mississippi or Amazon, streams 
which men may often tap and bring to 
the surface in ever-flowing artesian 
wells, so there is an undercurrent of 
happiness in this universe, and if we 
connect our lives with it, our joy is 
perennial ; there shall be within us then 
a well of water, springing up not only 
unto everlasting life, but to everlasting 
happiness. 

This undercurrent of happiness, or, 
rather, — let us give it its nobler name, 
— of blessedness, is God. How shall you 
obtain it ? Connect yourself with God. 
Practise the presence of God. This is 



54 THE GREAT SECRET. 

the secret, the only secret, of happiness. 
Enter into the secret of his pavilion. 
Go by yourself every morning for this 
infilling of the indwelling God. Open 
wide your heart's doors to him. Leave 
no dark, cobweb-lined room in your 
soul, which you shut away from him. 
Find out what John has to tell you 
about the Holy Spirit, about his abid- 
ing, ever-indwelling, informing, enlight- 
ening, comforting presence. Do not only 
know about it, but know it ; know him,, 
as a matter, not of books and second- 
hand information, but of experience. 
Then you have learned the secret of 
happiness. 

Again, lest my readers think I am 
using common words in an occult, 
mystical sense, let me say that I am 
talking about ordinary, every-day happi- 



THE SECRET OF HAPPINESS. 55 

ness, the very thing that we are all 
seeking, the element in life which 
makes it worth living. There are not 
two kinds of happiness. There is only 
one. There are many kinds of dis- 
traction, many ways of filling up the 
time ; only one way of filling the heart. 
As the setting sun lights up the 
heavens and makes the darkest clouds 
radiant with supernal glory, so the 
happy heart lights up everything upon 
which the eyes rest. Niagara becomes 
more glorious, the home hearthstone 
more lovely, the Alps more majestic, 
travel more enchanting, home-staying 
more charming, success more sweet, 
sorrow more salutary, and our very 
tears become prisms through which we 
behold irradiated the brighter purposes 
of God. 



56 THE GREAT SECRET. 

I began by saying that happiness of 
a certain sort is the most elusive of 
emotions ; let me close by saying that 
the happiness which comes from prac- 
tising the presence of God is the most 
steady and abiding of realities. It can 
always be had. It is always at hand. 
It never eludes the honest seeker. 
It never deserts him in the hour of 
crisis, for it is wherever and whenever 
God is, and God is always and every- 
where. And, O blessed thought ! it 
may be yours and mine to-day and 
forever. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART IV. 



THE 
SECRET 

OF 

FRIEND -MAKING 



PART IV. 

THE SECRET OF FRIEND-MAKING. 

"I have called you friends." — John 15 : 15. 

'HHHERE is within most hearts an 
-*• intense longing for friendship. If 
friendship is not the " master passion," 
it is certainly one of the ruling passions 
of the soul. Even those who usually 
appear to others most indifferent or 
most forbidding are often simply trying 
to conceal under a cold exterior their 
shyness or their real longing for the 
love of others. Under such human 
masks, which bring one the credit — 
or the discredit — of being haughty and 
self-contained, often seethes a very vol- 
59 



60 THE GREAT SECRET 

cano of pent-up longing for human sym- 
pathy and affection. 

A genuine friendship philter, which 
should compel the regard of others, 
would be the most popular drug in the 
market. 

Then why is this treasure, which is 
so earnestly desired by all mankind, and 
is within the reach of all, not more often 
found ? 

The answer is obvious. It is not 
sought in the right place or in the right 
way.. You may seek for gold a hun- 
dred years in New Hampshire's granite 
hills or in the deep loam of Iowa's prai- 
ries, but you will not find it in paying 
quantities, because it is not there. But, 
if you go to Colorado's hills or to the 
Rand of the Transvaal, to the quartz- 
mines of Ballarat or the alluvial fields 



SECRET OF FRIEND-MAKING. 6 1 

of the Klondike, you will find the pre- 
cious yellow metal you seek. 

Seeking Gold* 

You may search even there with a 
garden rake and a wood-chopper's axe, 
and you will not be likely to find it. 
You must take pick and crowbar and 
dynamite cartridge and stamping-mill 
before your search will be amply re- 
warded. 

So we seek the secret of friendship 
in the wrong place and in the wrong 
way. We seek it in ourselves or in 
others, where it is not to be found. 

"But where/' you say, "is it to be 
found, if not in one or both of the two 
people who alone are concerned ? " 

Here is just our fallacy. More than 
two are concerned. God is concerned, 



62 THE GREAT SECRET. 

and the source and secret of friendship 
we must find in him. Many have had 
some such experience as this : They 
have ardently longed for some human 
friendship, which seemed to them al- 
most indispensable to life. But they 
could not find their way into the longed- 
for affectionate regard. There was 
always some obstacle which prevented 
the progress of their craft into the 
secure, unruffled harbor of perfect con- 
fidence and esteem. Some awkward- 
ness of manner, some lack of grace or 
refinement, some stupidity or blunder, 
or lack of conversational power, kept 
them outside the bar they longed to 

cross. 

The Invisible Friendship* 

Let such a one make no further fran- 
tic, futile attempts to cross the bar, but 



SECRET OF FRIEND-MAKING. 6$ 

seek in God himself the secret of friend- 
ship, for the sake, not of the earthly 
friendship, but of the divine. Seeking 
the divine friendship, he will become 
like the divine One, and he will find 
in Jesus Christ the image of the in- 
visible friendship as well as of the 
invisible power and glory. He will 
become thoughtless of self as he learns 
that even Christ pleased not himself. 
He will become careful of others' rights 
and others' feelings. He will learn 
something of the blessedness of the 
meek, of the peacemaker, of the pure 
in heart ; and in his life will be obeyed 
that injunction which sounds like a soft, 
sweet strain of music whenever we hear 
it : " Be ye kind one to another, tender- 
hearted, forgiving one another, even as 
God for Christ's sake hath forgiven 
you." 



64 THE GREAT SECRET 

Can any one conceive of such a man's 
being friendless ? It is impossible. Any 
friendship in this wide world that is worth 
having would be at the disposal of a 
really Christlike man. He would not 
have to seek for it. It would be his by a 
law as irresistible as that which draws 
the soft iron to the magnet, the bee to 
the honey-filled flower, the planet to the 
sun around which it revolves. Only the 
hardened and wilfully vicious could resist 
the attraction of such a man. 

It has been said with truth, "The 
world does not yet know what God can 
accomplish through a fully conse- 
crated man." It is equally true that 
the world does not yet know the 
supreme attractiveness and love-com- 
pelling power of a thoroughly Christ- 
like, thoroughly unselfish, life. 



SECRET OF FRIEND-MAKING. 6$ 

44 The Soft Face." 

We have, to be sure, many measur- 
able approaches to this perfection. Our 
lives have all been blessed and sweet- 
ened by such characters. That popular 
writer, J. M. Barrie, in his exquisite 
biography of his mother, Margaret Ogil- 
vie, heads one chapter, " How my mother 
got her soft face." As the book goes 
on, he often hints at its true source. 
She found her " soft face " on her 
knees, where the children often sur- 
prised her. Many another mother, the 
mother whom some of us have known, 
has found her soft and shining face in 
the same lowly place. 

The secret of friendship is the secret 
of an unselfish life ; not merely the un- 
selfishness that is continually doing for 
others, cooking and sewing and crochet- 



66 THE GREAT SECRET. 

ing, and preparing delicacies, but the 
deeper unselfishness that forgets self, 
that gets us out of self and gets self 
out of us. 

The reason why we are not popular 
with others in the best sense of the 
word is that we are too self-conscious. 
We never have " a mind at leisure from 
itself." We are always thinking what 
will make us great or rich or happy. 
We are ever considering how we shall 
appear before others. We are ever 
thinking of our likes or dislikes, of our 
honor or dignity, of our rights or wrongs. 
No wonder we find the art of friend- 
making so difficult an art. 

The best manual for the friend-maker 
is found in the thirteenth chapter of 
First Corinthians, where he learns that 
love (and love is the chief ingredient of 



SECRET OF FRIEND-MAKING. 67 

friendship) is long-suffering and kind, 
not envious or rash or puffed up, not 
unseemly in behavior ; that she " seeketh 
not her own>" "is not easily provoked" 
and " thinketh no evil." 

But these rare qualifications, which 
must be possessed in greater or less 
degree to make friendship possible, are 
found in their full perfection in God 
alone. 

Let us, then, go back to the fountain- 
head. Would you be a friend and have 
friends ? Then practise the presence 
of God. Seek in him the elements of 
true friendship. Spend much time with 
him. Begin the day and close it alone 
with him. Seek in the likeness and life 
of Christ the elements which made him 
the friend of sinners, and you, too, will 
have learned the art of friend-making. 



68 THE GREAT SECRET 

The highest title ever applied to man 
has not been won by any duke or earl 
or king or emperor, but was won by 
an old Eastern sheik named Abraham. 
He was called "The Friend of God." 
He who practises the presence of God 
becomes the friend of God, and the 
friend of God has learned the secret of 
friendship. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART V. 



THE 
SECRET 

OF 

COMMON SENSE 



PART V. 

THE SECRET OF COMMON SENSE. 
" The manifold wisdom of God." — Eph. 3 : 10. 

TT has been said that common sense 
A is the most uncommon sense. And 
so it seems when we search history or 
the ways of common people in common 
life. They have everything else that is 
common except common sense. 

The greatest geniuses have often 
lacked this saving grain of salt in their 
character. Napoleon, for instance, in- 
toxicated by continued success, and by 
his own selfish, intolerable ambition, 
committed at last, in his march to 
Moscow, the fatal mistake from which 
71 



72 THE GREAT SECRET. 

a man of less genius but more common 
sense would have been saved, and his 
star from that moment began to wane. 
Washington in military genius was a 
dwarf compared with Napoleon, but he 
was a man of saving common sense, 
and he won a more imperishable re- 
nown. Lincoln, gaunt, grave, homely, 
towering Lincoln, the great future hero 
of the nineteenth century, united with 
the rarest genius of heart and soul more 
uncommon common sense than any man 
of his generation ; and for this he will 
be remembered and loved when other 
presidents and rulers are but mere 
names on the pages of dusty history. 

"What Is Common Sense? 

But common sense is not a quality 
that only warriors and statesmen need. 



SECRET OF COMMON SENSE. 73 

We must all have it in order to do our 
life-work well. The schoolboy needs it 
in the classroom, the housewife in the 
kitchen, the minister needs it in study 
and pulpit, the merchant behind the 
counter, the farmer in the field, the 
artisan in the shop, the doctor on his 
rounds. What is it ? It is a rare com- 
bination of many ingredients. It is tact. 
It is foresight. It is quickness to divine 
the right. It is an intuitive adaptation 
of means to ends. It is all this and 
more. It makes all the difference be- 
tween success and failure, between a 
fatal defeat and a glorious victory. 

Especially does a young Christian, 
for his own peace of mind and for his 
Master's glory, need this gift of common 
sense to balance and steady him. If he 
has it not, the very intensity of his con- 



74 THE GREAT SECRET. 

viction is apt to lead him into extrava- 
gance and fanaticism. He becomes 
convinced, perhaps, of the truth of 
some controverted and non - essential 
doctrine and custom ; and these views, 
held not in due proportion and subordi- 
nation to more important truths, fill the 
whole segment of his horizon. He can 
think, speak, write, of nothing else. He 
offends his neighbor's reverence for the 
first day of the week, refuses to call a 
physician for his dying child, prepares 
his ascension robes and gives away his 
property because of a private interpre- 
tation of some obscure chapter in Dan- 
iel. Scandal is brought upon the cause 
he loves and the name of the Lord he 
adores, for lack of the saving element 
of common sense among his Christian 
graces. 



SECRET OF COMMON SENSE. ?5 

Lack of Balance, 

Or this lack may be shown in other 
ways. Inflated schemes of Christian 
work may seem reasonable. Bloated 
plans for revolutionizing society and 
bringing about the millennium are ea- 
gerly pursued, and never abandoned, 
even when their absurdity is exposed. 
Lack of Christian boldness and a faith 
that dares no great things for God is 
deplorable ; but equally deplorable is 
the lack of balance and the foolish in- 
trepidity which runs before it is sent, 
and makes Christianity a laughing-stock 
before a gainsaying world. 

There are some good men, whom we 
all know, who seem to possess every 
other virtue but this. They are elo- 
quent, witty, wise, but they are not 
well balanced. They possess a su- 



76 THE GREAT SECRET 

preme faculty for botching and blunder- 
ing. They are boastful or extravagant 
in statement. They joke at a funeral, 
or by ill - timed facetiousness seek to 
dissipate a friend's grief. They do the 
right thing at the wrong time. Their 
mortified friends sum up their character 
by saying, " They have everything but 
common sense." 

This seems more like a radical, fun- 
damental defect of character than almost 
any other. But even this is not incur- 
able. Common sense, too, is not only 
born, but made. Study will not make 
it ; friends cannot do much ; experience 
often seems to teach but little ; but 
there is a course of spiritual schooling 
which has often accomplished won- 
ders for those who lack " this grace 
also." 



SECRET OF COMMON SENSE. JJ 

God Holds the Key* 

It is the same old, but wondrously 
new, secret. God himself holds the 
key. He hath said, " If any of you 
lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that 
giveth to all men liberally, and upbraid- 
eth not." Then let us go to him if we 
feel our need, and claim the fulfilment 
of this promise. Practise the presence 
of God. Spend much time alone with 
him. Lay before him your mistakes, 
your strange lack of success, the elusive 
hopes almost realized, but always dashed 
by some fatal blunder, a blunder which 
you cannot understand, but which your 
friends call a lack of common sense. 
Lay before him every new plan, every 
doubtful scheme, every address or letter, 
every ardent wish for service. 

And the result ? The boundaries of 



78 THE GREAT SECRET. 

your thinking will be rectified. You 
will no longer be spiritually blear-eyed 
or squint - eyed. You will see things 
in their true proportions and relations. 
You will unconsciously come to measure 
by God's rule and weigh by his balances. 
You will know the trivial from the im- 
portant, the temporary from the tran- 
sient, the passing from the eternal. 
You will "see clear and think straight. ,, 
Thus extravagance will be pruned, a tri- 
fling theory will not be exalted into an 
eternal truth ; the word will come to fit 
the thought ; the means adopted will be 
suited to the end to be gained. You 
will no longer kill gnats with trip-ham- 
mers, or strive to empty the sea with 
a tin cup. In short, you will learn ' to 
do your work modestly, quietly, effec- 
tively, happily, wisely, well ; and what 



SECRET OF COMMON SENSE. 79 

is this but the exercise of uncommon 
common sense ? 

All this is the blessed experience, as 
the record of many a wise and success- 
ful Christian worker has proved, of the 
man who practises much the presence 
of God. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART VI. 



THE 
SECRET 



SUCCESS 



PART VI. 

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 

" Then thou shalt have good success." — Josh, 
i : 8. 

r I ^HE secret of success is, in the 
-*• opinion of most men, the secret 
of secrets. To this they regard every- 
thing else as tributary; health and 
friends and common sense are good 
only as they win something they call 
success in life. All that a man hath 
will he give for success; even life it- 
self is held cheap by many, so long as 
life's dear, coveted prize is won. 

And those who reason thus are not 
far wrong. They are wrong, if at all, 
83 



84 THE GREAT SECRET 

only in their conception of what true 
success is. 

What, then, is the definition of this 
all-comprehensive word of magic, " suc- 
cess," to achieve which conquerors have 
often waded in blood, and many an un- 
gifted man has worn out his body and 
bartered his soul ? 

It may be defined as the attaining of 
one's cherished aims and life-purposes. 
Then, whether success is noble or ig- 
noble, worthy or paltry, depends upon 
the question whether these life -pur- 
poses are worthy or paltry. 

"How do you manage to get such 
a weally wemarkable knot in your tie, 
Chollie, old fellow ? " a gilded youth, ac- 
cording to one of our comic papers, asks 
another; and "Chollie" replies, "Well, 
I fling me whole soul into it, doncher 
see?" 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 85 

Undoubtedly success in cravat-tying 
can be thus achieved, but the question 
is apt to arise, " Is it worth while, after 
all?" 

Is It Worth While? 

The young man who spent all his 
spare time for five years in teaching 
a poodle dog to stand on its hind legs 
and balance a penny on its nose suc- 
ceeded, but was the success worth 
achieving? The fabled professor who 
spent his whole life upon the dative 
case of the Greek article doubtless 
became a learned man concerning the 
Greek dative, but was his success worth 
achieving ? The housewife who scrubs 
and scours and scrapes and polishes 
her dishes and her brassware and her 
floors, instead of polishing her own wits 



86 THE GREAT SECRET. 

and those of her children, undoubtedly 
achieves success as a notable housewife, 
and comes to have an immaculate and 
spotless house; but if hers is only a 
house, and not a true home> is her suc- 
cess worth achieving? The man who 
becomes a slave to his business, who 
grows gray and wrinkled in soul as well 
as body, who dulls his finer sensibilities, 
and becomes at last a mere money-mak- 
ing machine, usually succeeds in piling 
up a large bank account, but is his suc- 
cess worth achieving? 

So we might go on through a long, 
long list of life -purposes, on whose 
achievement men have set their hearts 
and risked their souls; and again and 
again the questions would recur : " Is 
it worth while?" "Is such success 
worth achieving ?" And in every case 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 87 

the mournful answer would come back : 
"No, no, no. This success, when won, 
isn't worth the winning. ,, Those who 
had most completely gained such a life's 
purpose would be the first to give this 
answer. 

The One True Success. 

Thus, as we went on, ever asking 
this question, and ever receiving the 
same answer, we should be driven by 
an inexorable process of elimination to 
this conclusion : There is only one that 
can fill full the insatiable soul of man, 
and that is God. There is but one 
life-purpose whose achievement is real 
success, and that is the pursuit of the 
knowledge of God. There is but one 
complete satisfaction, and that is the 
satisfaction of awaking in his likeness. 



88 THE GREAT SECRET. 

It follows, then, that no other success 
is worth the achieving which is not 
knowledge of God and likeness to God. 
But this success, O discouraged broth- 
er man, this success of successes, is 
within your grasp. You may have 
missed the secret of wealth or power or 
fame ; but this, which is worth them all, 
ten million times over, is yours if you 
will have it. It is the same open secret 
about which we have talked in the other 
chapters, and the method of attaining it 
is the same. Seek Him who will ever 
be found of those who seek him. Prac- 
tise the presence of God. Seek this 
supreme success alone, in your cham- 
ber, the door closed -even on your 
dearest earthly friend, and the door of 
your heart closed to all but God. You 
will take your Bible with you. It will 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 89 

open almost of itself to certain passages 
in John's Gospel and Paul's and John's 
epistles. It will be no mere printed 
book. It will be your Father's letter, 
your Father's love-letter, if we may 
redeem the word from trivial associa- 
tions. But you will not always even 
read his letter ; you will talk with him 
as a man talketh with a friend. You 
will ask him questions and hear his 
answer. You will open to him the 
soul which he alone can fill ; and, as 
more and more it becomes the supreme 
aim of your life to be God-filled, more and 
more will your life - purpose be gratified, 
and the supremest success will be yours. 

Even the Lower Success* 

Even lower and partial successes, I 
believe, are more likely to come to the 



90 THE GREAT SECRET. 

man who communes with God. This is 
inevitable, if, as I have claimed in pre- 
vious chapters, communion with God 
brings health and comeliness and friends 
and happiness and common sense; for 
it might be said in a lower, but very 
real, sense that health and comeliness 
and happiness and friends are the ele- 
ments that constitute success. Other 
things being equal, given the same 
brain-power, foresight, prudence, per- 
severance, I believe the man who prac- 
tises the presence of God is far more 
likely to achieve, in the long run, mere 
worldly success, to become the rich 
man, the honored man, the powerful 
man ; for communion with God clarifies 
the mind, steadies the nerves, dispels 
the fog of prejudice, calms the fever 
of envy and ill will, which often make 



THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. 9 1 

even the lowest form of success unat- 
tainable. 

But this success, if gained, is only 
incidental and tributary ; it only enables 
us to serve God with larger power and 
influence. It is not in itself the highest 
success or necessary to the highest suc- 
cess. Let us bring our minds back to 
the one plain, indisputable fact which 
the history of every human soul reit- 
erates. There is but one being large 
enough to fill the soul of the puniest 
man. It is God. 

There is but one supreme aim, the 
attainment of which means success. It 
is God. 

There is but one life-purpose worth 
achieving. It is God. 

A synonym which I think perhaps 
John would use for success is his fa- 



92 THE GREAT SECRET 

vorite word, "life." And surely they 
mean much the same. Abundant life 
is abundant success. Eternal life is 
eternal success, for it is eternal like- 
ness to God. Listen to our Lord's 
own definition . of life. " This is life 
eternal, that they might know thee 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
whom thou hast sent. ,, 

O God, give unto us all this life, by 
giving unto us thyself ; for thou didst 
come to earth that we might have life, 
and that we might have it more abun- 
dantly. 



THE 
GREAT 
SECRET 



PART VII. 



WHAT IS IT 

TO 

PRACTISE THE 
PRESENCE OF GOD? 



PART VII. 

WHAT IS IT TO PRACTISE THE PRESENCE 
OF GOD ? 

T)ERHAPS, since I have used the 
-*■ phrase so persistently, I ought to 
explain more fully what I mean by 
" practising the presence of God," and 
how his presence may be practised. 

I have used the phrase because, as I 
first saw it in the works of Jeremy 
Taylor and Brother Lawrence, it opened 
to my vision a whole new continent of 
truth, and I have hoped it might flash 
upon other minds the same blessed 
prospect, just as a stroke of lightning 
reveals a wide, but hitherto hidden, 
95 



96 THE GREAT SECRET 

scene. In every article of this series 
I have tried to indicate briefly what 
practising the presence of God is. 

But let me be more explicit. It 
involves going away by one's self. It 
involves a daily quiet hour with God. 
It involves a putting away of all known 
sin. It involves a searching of the 
heart for the rebellious life-guard who 
would keep some of the apartments of 
the soul closed to the entrance of the 
King. 

Alas, in the case of most of us it 
needs but little searching ; for we know 
the besetting sin, the favorite idol, 
which keeps God out, and we lack the 
will to cast it out of our hearts. But 
this is indispensable. We cannot prac- 
tise the presence of God while cherished 
sin is there. 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 97 

We must also give everything into 
God's care and keeping, and accept his 
will for our will. If we cannot at first 
honestly and fully do this, as has been 
wisely and well said, we can be " willing 
to be made willing' ' to give up every- 
thing for God. 

Then, when thus the heart is made 
ready by the Holy Spirit, who always 
works with us in this preparation, let us 
yet longer sit still before God alone. 
Our Bible is open, perhaps to the 
familar passage which reveals the won- 
drous truth that man dwells in God and 
God in man, as John records it. 

Seek to realize this stupendous fact, 
for all Scripture is a lie if this is not 
a fact. 

Say to yourself over and over again : 
"God is here. God is here. God 



98 THE GREAT SECRET 

is within me. / am his child. God 
is my Father." 

One of these thoughts is soul-food 
enough for one day. Live on it 
throughout that day, whenever in the 
midst of daily duties an unoccupied 
moment enables you to resort to it. 

The next morning, for a half-hour's 
meditation, take another of these biblical 
truths. It may aid the sluggish spirit 
at first to write out these short but 
wondrous sentences in large capitals. 

GOD IS HERE. 

I AM GOD'S CHILD. 

I AM IN MY FATHER'S PRES- 
ENCE. 

But we shall not always need the 
written or printed sentence, for it will 
soon be engraved on our souls and 
become part of our lives. 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. 99 

Little by little we shall go on to 
appreciate by such communion and 
meditation the deep truths of God's 
incarnation in Jesus Christ, of the Holy 
Spirit's indwelling, enlightening, wit- 
nessing, comforting power. But it will 
all be God, God within and God with- 
out, God here, God everywhere, God in 
his word, in his world, in history, in us. 
We have come to realize, to practise 
(there is no other word so good) the 
presence of God. We look forward to 
the hour of this practice with supreme 
delight. It is refreshment, food, drink, 
clothing, health, to our soul. 

Gradually the influence of the hour 
goes with us through the day ; every 
sorrow is sweetened, every joy doubled, 
every care is lightened, by his presence. 
Service becomes sweet, difficult tasks 



IOO THE GREAT SECRET 

easy. Every hour has its song ; life 
becomes worth living. 

Let me close by quoting the experi- 
ence of Brother Lawrence, the poor 
monk, who knew as few men have done 
what it is to practise the presence of God. 

Being questioned by one of his own 
society by what means he had attained 
such an habitual sense of God, he told 
him "that in the beginning he spent 
the hours appointed for private prayer 
in thinking of God, so as to convince 
his mind of, and to impress deeply upon 
his heart, the divine existence ; . . . 
that by this short and sure method he 
exercised himself in the knowledge and 
love of God, resolving to use his utmost 
endeavor to live in a continual sense of 
his presence, and, if possible, never to 
forget him more." 



THE PRESENCE OF GOD. IOI 

" His very countenance," said his com- 
panion, was edifying, such a sweet and 
calm devotion appearing in it as could 
not but affect the beholders. And it 
was observed that in the greatest hurry 
of business in the kitchen (for he was a 
cook to the society), he still preserved 
his recollection and heavenly-minded- 
ness. He was never hasty or loitering, 
but did each thing in its season, with an 
even, uninterrupted composure and tran- 
quillity of spirit. " The time of busi- 
ness," said he, " does not with me differ 
from the time of prayer, and in the 
noise and clatter of my kitchen, while 
several persons are at the same time 
calling for different things, I possess 
God in as great tranquillity as if I were 
upon my knees at the blessed sacra- 
ment." 



1 02 THE GREA T SEC RE T. 

Here is a life, O Christian Endeavor- 
ers, that is not beyond our reach. We, 
too, can dwell in this atmosphere. 
We, too, can be hid in His pavilion. 
We, too, can practise the presence of 
God. 



A Daily Message for Christian 
Endeavorers* 

By Mrs. Francis E. Clark. With introduc- 
tion by Dr. Clark. Beautifully illustrated. 
384 pages. Price, only $1.00. 
This is a book for the Quiet Hour, the Prayer Meeting, and 
the Birthday. It is three books in one. There is a page for 
every day in the year filled with the choicest thoughts of the 
best writers, that will enrich and deepen the spiritual life of 
every reader. The collection is the result of years of careful 
reading, and most of the selections will be found peculiarly 
appropriate for use in prayer meetings. The index of subjects 
will enable one to find choice quotations on almost any topic. 
A new feature in books of this kind is the place for birthday 
entries, space being given under every day in the year. The 
choicest gift-book of the year. 

The Morning Watch* 

A book for the Quiet Hour. By Belle M. 
Brain. Cloth. About 400 pages. Price, $1.00. 

Here are 366 diamonds of the rarest color and brilliancy, 
gems from the heart and brain and hand of the saints of God of 
all ages. With this book in your possession, you can live for a 
month and hold daily conversation with Andrew Murray, F. B. 
Meyer, A. J. Gordon, Francis E. Clark, D. L. Moody, J. R. 
Miller, and others. They will speak to you from the hours of 
their richest and deepest experience. If you want to draw near 
to God, you can have no better help than the daily message 
from his word and from his servant that this book will bring 
you. 

PUBLISHING DEPARTilENT, 

United Society of Christian Endeavor. 

646 Washington Street, 155 La Salle Street, 

Boston, Mass. Chicago, 111. 

103 



Elijah Tone, Citizen. 

By Amos R. Wells. Cloth, illustrated, $1.00. 
Paper covers, 25 cents. 

This stirring and attractive story by Professor Wells will 
make a most acceptable gift for that wide-awake boy of yours ; 
and if it interests the boys, you may be sure it will interest the 
girls. The theme is the nineteenth-century, up-to-date one of 
Christian citizenship, the characters are finely drawn, the situa- 
tions are sufficiently thrilling, and the style so vigorous that it 
claims and holds the attention of the reader from the first page 
to the last. It ought to be in every Sunday school library. 

Next Steps* 

An advanced text-book in Christian Endeavor. 
By Rev. W. F. McCauley. Cloth. 50 cents. 

Here is a book for every Christian Endeavor worker. It is 
by the author of " How " and " Why," which have had so large 
a sale. It is a storehouse of suggestion. It deals not with 
theories, but with practical, workable methods. As a statement 
of Christian Endeavor principles and methods, it is unexcelled. 
If you want to help some earnest workers, make them a present 
of this book. 

Sunday-School Success* 

By Amos R. Wells. Cloth. Price, $1.25. 

Professor Wells is an authority on Sunday-school work, and 
presents his ideas in so masterful a way that he grips the atten- 
tion at once. Here is the freshest, most suggestive, and inspir- 
ing book for Sunday-school workers we have ever read. It 
ought to be in the hands of every superintendent and teacher. 
A splendid Christmas present for such workers. 

PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT, 

United Society of Christian Endeavor. 

646 Washington Street, 155 La Salle Street, 

Boston, Mass. Chicago, 111. 

104 



